Well I haven’t started teaching anything yet, but I guess I’ve already made some sort of impression. This week was spent observing classes, with the exception of Monday when I had orientation in Rouen. The 40 km (25 mi) drive usually only takes about 35 minutes from Louviers, but because of all the traffic it took an hour and 15 minutes. If the weather is anything but clear and sunny, the French have difficulty driving. It was barely raining and there were signs cautioning drivers to slow down because of dangerous conditions. I sat through introductions in Arabic, Chinese, German, English, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish before the meeting got underway in French. The Teaching Assistant Program in France this year is represented by 5,678 people from 51 countries speaking more than 15 languages. In the Académie de Rouen there are 163 assistants from 26 different countries, so basically I’m an honorary member of the UN.
During our break for lunch I met some other assistants, one of whom is from Voorhees and we bonded over South Jersey. Staff from the Office of Immigration and Integration collected our paperwork – which I didn’t know I was supposed to bring – after lunch. Luckily I had thrown everything in my backpack before I left and plenty of other people didn’t have photocopies of their visa or entry stamp either, so I was able to make copies and hand everything in. On my way back from the photocopier I walked with the “Inspecteur” for the Académie and found out that I have two of the best teachers that they’ve got, alors quelle chance!
On Tuesday I had my first day of shadowing, during which I sat in on an English class of 6èmes (11 year olds), 4èmes (13 year olds) and a history class of 4èmes. I also met some of the other teachers at the collège over lunch. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but I was when they started passing around wine and cidre; why drink water when you can have something alcoholic? Although I can’t blame them for needing a drink; there’s never complete silence in the classroom, if anything it’s always the exact opposite. The teachers were more or less yelling over their students for the entire lesson. The 4èmes in English class didn’t understand my introduction (where I only mentioned my name, age, where I’m from and what I’m doing at their school), but thankfully in the other classes I at least had a map to show them where Philadelphia is. Now, when I only get blank stares after I say I’m from Philadelphia, I ask them if they know Rocky and when they all come to life I just tell them that that’s where I’m from.
Overall, the kids seem to be much more behaved at the lycée (high school). I got to sit in on an “Économie Touristique” lesson during which students gave presentations on the different regions of France. It was pretty interesting, and I took some notes because they discussed some places I’d definitely like to visit. Earlier in the day on Wednesday I observed an English class of secondes (14-15 year olds) where I was asked a lot of questions about myself and what I think of France so far. They had a lot of questions for me, but a lot of them they didn’t know how to ask in English and I was told not to answer them in French. They were kind of annoyed about that, especially since I understood what they were saying, and complained to their teacher who ultimately ended up translating my answers for them anyway. English teachers here all learn British English and consequently have British accents and some difficulty understanding my American accent. A lot of the time in class I have to infer what the American equivalent of certain things are, i.e. “green grocer” = produce stand/market, “chemist's” = pharmacy, Z = Zed, etc.
Probably the most interesting class I saw all week was “cuisine moleculaire.” I’m not really sure what that would be in English, but basically it was a course where the students try to manipulate the chemistry of food and cooking to help improve nutrition and digestion. For instance, one of the professors was working with different kinds of flour to cut down on the amount of butter and sugar that they have to add to cakes to help people with dietary restrictions. It was a really awesome class, one in which the professor described everyone as being like a patient in a mental institution because everyone has these crazy ideas of things to do with food. Case in point: take a normal cheese soufflé, but rather than add herbs and spices to the mixture, why not make an “infusion,” mix it with agar, and make spheres with the liquid infusion inside to put in the soufflé. Not exactly how the average Phillipe would make a cheese soufflé. The infusion was the most interesting part of this experiment; Phillipe (the student I was working with) got basil, mint and parsley, put them in three different pots with some water and garlic and boiled them so that some of the oils would be released. Once he had the liquid he mixed it with agar (the stuff that they make the gel in Petri dishes out of), and using a tiny melon scooper he put it in a salt solution where “sphérification” occurred, forming spheres with a skin surrounding the infusion. These spheres went inside the soufflés, which we prepared from flour, egg whites, hazelnut oil, and three kinds of cheese. For fans of Muenster cheese in the US, it’s completely different here: it smells terrible (I can pinpoint exactly what it smells like, but I’ll spare you the details), but tastes amazing.
Speaking of smell, this week I must have self-checked myself at least a dozen times. I guess they’re immune to the smell of hoagies with extra oregano and vinegar, but I’m not sure if I’ll ever get used to it. Thank you Old Spice for doing what you were made to do.
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